Thread: What’s your favorite tried and true way to catch big bluegill?

Even large bluegill have small mouths and so using a larger bait doesn't make as big of a difference as it does with fish like bass and crappie.

The lures shown are pretty large for 5" and larger bluegills have pretty large mouths in comparison to lure body size. As long as #6 jig head hooks are used, fish will attack and get hooked on moderately sized soft plastics such as:


These gills on the small size aren't exceptions to the rule, they are the rule.

...a few more:


(note: hooks are reattached from the outside for photo only and record keeping photo log.)

Don't get me wrong, fish don't attack necessarily because they are hungry or want a big, fat quick & easy meal. Aggression is aggression no matter the reason and overthinking motive is labeling at most to justify most explanations why fish attack. I stick simply to lure design and presentation which includes the maximum size lure gills attack of any particular design.

Originally Posted by Spoonminnow

I stick simply to lure design and presentation which includes the maximum size lure gills attack of particular designs.

I don't disagree with this approach. Just my experience tells me if I'm fishing 1/16th oz jigs with 2 inch long or longer bodies I'm not likely to catch more than a handful of bluegill. If I were fishing for a lake record and didn't care about catching enough for a couple of family meals I would indeed focus only on larger baits. Same if I went fishing a lot more often than I do. But my fishing time is limited and if I'm bluegill fishing I'm usually trying to catch enough for my family of 4 to get a few meals from. At least on the waters around here in north MS, I'm not likely to make a catch of 10 or more 8" fish on jigs longer than 1.5 inches or so.

All lures shown average 1.5 - 2.5" and few gills are over 5 1/2", some 6". In spring in NY I caught over 2 doz. sunfish on different outings along with other species on the same lures. Amazing the fight of a 6" sunfish !!

In the spring I like to fish the edge of the weed beds in 3' to 6' of water using double jigs.

I end up with a lot of small -8" bluegill which are still fun to catch. But I also wind up with a lot of 8"+ bluegill also. A metal hook stringer with the fish doubled up/2 per hook.


Using the same setup (double jib) in the same area produces a lot of crappie and a couple perch. Tossed 50+ crappie back that day keeping fish 13" or bigger along with a couple perch. You can only see 1 perch on the stringer.


There are 2 perch there, 1 is covered up by the crappie


In the summer I'll use plastics, small spoons, bobbers with worms/crawlers/jigs, roadrunners, etc. Mainly targeting catfish in the summer I use an ultra-lite on the side to keep me busy. Come fall I'm back on the panfish and mainly use dropshots and crawlers & typically fish +/- 6' of water 50'/60' past the edge of the weed beds. Don't get a lot of crappie there but I do catch tons of bluegill & perch. End up with a lot of dinks but there's a lot of keepers there also. I'll typically fish for +/- 3 hours and it's non-stop action.


If I went out to deeper water 9'+ I'd be in the crappie and huge bluegill using tipped jigs or minnows on the bottom/vertical jigging. That's a long way out in a kayak so I fish +/ 1/2 mile out and enjoy myself. The occasional catfish keeps things interesting while dropshotting with ul equipment.


Best thing is to keep trying & testing different depths/area's and throw the kitchen sink at them until you find a combo that works for that area/situation.

Nice catch! You should have enough for 100 meals !

Best thing is to keep trying & testing different depths/area's and throw the kitchen sink at them until you find a combo that works for that area/situation.

Couldn't have said it better - except - the lures I posted catch everything all the time as long as I can locate fish. One guy I fish with will only cast a red body/chartreuse tail Crappie Magnet and can almost keep up with me fish for fish.

Hand tied jigfly and float.

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